Browsing by Subject "Economic development"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 114
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    Alternative workforce development : the potential of youth, arts-based initiatives and the case of the Rose Kids
    (2013-08) Brigmon, Nathan; Sletto, Bjørn
    Every year, the US Conference of Mayors presents awards to mayors and their administrations for programs that enhance the quality of life in urban areas. In 2009, the City of Charleston won and was named America’s “Most Livable” City. The program that won them the honor was the Palmetto Artisan Program, an entrepreneurial skill program helping youth artisans become licensed business vendors. This report seeks to understand the potential for arts-based youth programs, like the Palmetto Artisan Program, to impact local economic development and enhance quality of life. I explore this issue through a literature review of workforce development, arts-related economic development, an analysis of five programs across the country, and an in-depth analysis of the Palmetto Artisan Program in Charleston, SC. The report concludes with recommendations and insights for cities and regions wishing to implement similar programs that benefit young people and their communities.
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    Analysis of the relationship between energy (useful work) and economic growth of the Republic of Korea
    (2017-05-08) Yoon, Yongseok; King, Carey Wayne; Energy and Earth Resources
    Over the last half-century, Korea has achieved remarkable economic growth enabling it to become the world’s 11th largest economy. Various efforts have been made to identify the driving forces of its rapid economic growth and to verify the relationship between Korea’s energy consumption and economic development. However, conventional energy analyses have limitations because they did not consider the actual services energy provides for economic activities. “Useful work” measures the amount of exergy finally used at the end-use stage, which focuses on the result of an energy use rather than energy input. Moreover, useful work considers both quality of energy and the thermodynamic second-law efficiency, which gives better insights into the role of energy in an economy. Useful work has been an important factor for Korea’s economic development, and it has been affected by industrial structures, economic shocks, and energy policies. Korea’s industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s created a rapid increase in useful work consumption. The oil shocks in the 1970s slightly slowed the growth of useful work consumption and contributed to the diversification of Korea’s energy portfolio. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the growth of Korea’s useful work consumption accelerated again due to the increasing demand in the industry and transportation sectors. After Korea’s financial crisis in 1997, the growth rates of GDP and useful work consumption have slowed down. Korea’s rapid industrialization has increased the shares of mechanical drive and high temperature heat uses, and aggregate exergy efficiency has improved faster than that in other countries. As a result, Korea became able to produce more goods and services with less energy (exergy) inputs, and energy (exergy) intensity has declined. However, useful work intensity has been more stable because of improved exergy efficiency. This shows that Korea’s useful work consumption is more closely related to its economic growth than energy consumption. In this paper, Korea’s energy sectors are briefly introduced, and the processes for estimating useful work from IEA data are summarized. The evolution of Korea’s useful work consumption, exergy efficiency, useful work intensity, and their relationships to Korea’s economic development are also presented.
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    Are we really helping? Data collection tools for Texas Main Street Cities
    (2016-05) Bostick, Britin Ashley; Wegmann, Jake; Evans, Angela
    Data for the Texas Main Street Program is collected from the participating individual local programs through program managers who may not have sufficient knowledge, education or training to accurately or adequately provide the information requested. The questions asked in the report forms do not capture data that can give a clear picture of program performance or provide an effective comparison of peer programs. The format of the reporting forms is weighted toward manual transfer of information and presents difficulties for systematic review. These three factors combined inhibit analysis that can inform the effectiveness of state program policies which are implemented at the local level. Building a set of tools to effectively utilize data collection opportunities can help improve the quality of data collected. Better quality data enables analysis of how well the programs are working locally. This analysis could serve to inform Texas Main Street Program policy and provide opportunities to improve the local programs and to understand what successes can be replicated. This Professional Report analyzes how data is currently collected by the Texas Main Street Program, what is done with that data and what changes could be made to the current set of data collection tools. It also proposes new tools that could enable more effective policy for the program.
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    The arts as amenity : a factor in regional economic development?
    (2007-05) Sullivan, Ryan James; Oden, Michael
    Arts and cultural activity may play an important role in regional economic development. But to what end and by what means? Traditional economic development theory identifies export expansion and import substitution as the means by which an industrial sector may add to a region’s economic base. Recorded and visual arts may produce exports in some regions, but live performing arts are incapable of exportation. Instead, they must generate tourism to capture extra-regional dollars. Contemporary research argues two additional means by which the arts may encourage growth. First, the presence of a great many artists and arts institutions may increase firm productivity and efficiency by reducing the cost of arts services, increasing the quality of and accessibility to arts services, and promoting innovation. Second, an abundance of arts and cultural activity may attract a highly skilled, competitive workforce, which then attracts firm relocation. This report presents original research designed to test this last hypothesis as applied to Austin, Texas. Results indicate that while the arts in Austin may not attract a competitive workforce, they do appear to have at least some significance in retaining creative professionals.
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    Arts-based adaptive reuse development in Birmingham, Alabama
    (2010-05) Griffin, Celeste Evans; Sletto, Bjorn; Oden, Michael
    This report, situated in Birmingham, Alabama, explores the best strategies for implementing arts-based adaptive reuse development in vacant or available downtown buildings. Through adaptive-reuse, a strategy of repurposing old buildings for new uses, the arts sector in Birmingham can be nurtured and strengthened. In this report, I present the major implications associated with the strengthening of the arts community. These implications include economic development, central city revitalization, community building, and gentrification.
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    Balance between humanity and ecology
    (2009) Spears, Steven Joseph, 1974-; Catterall, Kate
    Incorporating aspects of public and environmental art practices into my professional endeavors as a landscape architect and urban designer has provided me with opportunities to work at a human scale, consider human needs, and focus on environmental issues that are closely interwoven with those needs. The public and environmental art process has presented greater opportunities to balance the sublime with the pragmatic and allows for a more overt communication between designer and audience, viewer or user. Functioning in this interstitial space allows me to communicate ideas clearly and to initiate a broader discussion on how society might find a balance between the stewardship of the natural environment in the face of the exponential growth of communities and the desire to own and develop land. My aim is to strike a balance between economic development and environmental imperatives through work bridging the practice of landscape architecture and public art. My objective is to use art and design work in the environment to persuade people to utilize all of their senses and to realize the undiscovered in their own journey, to stop and notice the world around them, and to act to protect the delicate balance between contemporary civilization and precious ecosystems. Using a method to register and then to make overt ephemeral elements in the environment, I aim to both demonstrate the ever-changing quality of nature and, more importantly, abuses of the natural environment in our society. Although my interest in the natural environment is multifaceted, water quantity and quality is a focus for my work. It is fast becoming a global issue with dire environmental and social ramifications. In the southwest United States and Australia, water is scarce. In the northwest United States and Finland, water quality remains an issue. In parts of Africa and Asia, water is being privatized and villages are left without a source of life and livelihood that has been a constant for generations. The more poetic aspect of my work focuses on natural time and revealing the abstract beauty of the environment. Shadows, sun, water and wind are all environmental systems that we can learn from and are revealed to us through natural time. It is through natural time that we may learn, respect and come into balance with the environment. In order for my work to succeed on all levels and reach the broadest possible audience, it needs to exist in the public realm. In order for it to communicate effectively it needs to be both, persuasive and poetic; while revealing possibilities for harmony between humanity and ecology. This can be achieved by communicating natures’ equilibrium surrounding environmental issues in the face of human civilization and time.
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    Best practices for economic development in metropolitan areas in post-recession eras
    (2016-05) Conte, Gregory Robert; Wilson, Robert Hines; Gawande, Kishore S., 1959-
    Metropolitan areas have established themselves drivers to the national economy, and contributors to the overall global economy. For instance, of the 3 million U.S. jobs created in 2014, 94 percent were produced in metro areas. As citizens leave rural areas to find work and prosperity in more urbanized centers, policymakers in these regions are beginning to recognize that their policies and strategies have the tendency to resonate further than intended. The Great Recession of 2007-09 devastated many local economies as regional areas found themselves unprepared as they picked up the pieces from their broken economy. This report argues that metro areas, while still producing collaborative economic development plans, need to also reflect upon previous post-recession eras and proactively prepare for the next national turndown. While no metro area is recession proof, policymakers and stakeholders have a responsibility to insulate their areas as best as possible from proceeding recessions and this concern is often an afterthought.
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    Burguesía nacional y competitividad internacional: el caso Arcor
    (2010-05) Baudino, Verónica Gabriela
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    Ciudadanía, Movimientos Sociales y Mercosur
    (0000-00-00) Jelin, Elizabeth
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    Cooperatives as vehicles for community and economic development : a case for alternative ownership and expansion of the solidarity economy in Austin, Texas
    (2023-04-21) Vallier, Shaw; Oden, Michael
    Rapidly rising home prices in and around Austin, Texas has led to the displacement of residents, which in turn results in loss of community as well as increased traffic as most workers still need to access jobs near the city center. Increasing support for worker-owned firms and housing cooperatives could be community and economic development strategies for stabilizing residents. Cooperatives were able to better weather economic downturns brought on by COVID, keeping more workers employed and paid. This report uses review of existing literature, case studies, and analysis of secondary data sources to identify advantages as well as specific areas for intervention in both the productive enterprise and housing sectors. Austin has a small but established cooperative ecosystem that can continue to contribute to the growth of the solidarity economy in the area. This report specifically explores alternative models of ownership for firms and housing as a strategy for community development, and further, as strategies that will maximize the benefits of the systems already in place. The overarching point, however, is that alterative models of ownership would lend themselves well to the objectives of 1) ensuring that the incredible growth the region continues to see is sustainably and equitably distributed, 2) supporting the leveraging of community resources to return community benefits, wherever possible, and 3) to support parallel strengthening of worker and resident movements in the face of increasing returns to global investors
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    Creating the Technopolis: High-Technology Development in Austin, Texas
    (Journal of Business Venturing, 1989-01) Smilor, Raymond W.; Gibson, David V.; Kozmetsky, George
    New institutional alliances, driven by the rapid increase in and diversity of new technologies, are altering the strategy and tactics of economic development. As a result, communities across the world are seeking to create modern technopoleis or city-states that interactively link technology commercialization with public and private sectors to spur economic growth and diversification through high-technology company development. This paper develops the conceptual framework of a technopolis wheel from studying the dynamics of high-technology development and economic growth in Austin, Texas. It describes seven segments within the technopolis: the university, large technology companies, small technology companies, federal government, state government, local government and support groups. (Author's preprint.)
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    Crecimiento industrial y alianza de clases en la Argentina (1930-1940)
    (1968) Murmis, Miguel; Portantiero, Juan Carlos
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